Dropbox not completely syncing

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bikermiker
Posts: 16
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:23 am

Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by bikermiker »

Hi,

First post. I have a 5004t and have an issue with the app Sync for Dropbox. I moved a lot of picture files around inside the dropbox folder of my NAS and not all of them moved. Dropbox now is in a constant state of indexing and I'm stuck in limbo. I find the dropbox app to be pretty buggy at best as I've had problems with my music library as well. It does not like it when folders change or when things move. I'm pretty disappointed with the app.
joe
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:59 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by joe »

Your comments echo my very recent experience with this.

Dropping 'too many' new files and folders or making 'too many' changes in the local NAS sync folder or indeed on the remote dropbox side results in the NAS dropboxd process not being able to cope with syncing the contents. The resulting symptoms are high CPU usage on the NAS dropboxd process and lack of feedback what the process is actually doing (if anything) in the ADM. I can't strace or lsof the process via SSH to see what the dropboxd process is actually doing because these commands aren't available in the NAS's 'special' linux o/s.

Go easy on it by being careful about the volume of file changes you make and it limps along and works. Less than stellar, virtually useless.

I plan to leave it running for a while longer to see if it eventually gets there and if it doesn't (and I expect it won't), it's going to get binned off until the next bug fixed version gets published.

This feels like it was tested by the Microsoft Windows 10 QA department aka it has the feel of not being internally tested at all and just shoved out for end users to do QA on it.
Last edited by joe on Sun Oct 09, 2016 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
bikermiker
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:23 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by bikermiker »

Yup. That is exactly it. It works fine as long as there are not several path, folder changes, file moves.... wait... isn't it supposed to do that :?: .

I've noticed it only when making changes on the NAS. One thing it has a problem with is my iTunes library. I can't load new music onto my synced library with the "sync to dropbox" app running. I have to pause it, do my changes and then resume. That has worked in the past until now. I had to move a few thousands of files around (you know... something you do with a NAS) with the app paused. After moving everything around I resumed. Everything ran fine for several hours while it updated and then it just stopped. Signing in and out of the app did nothing to help. dropboxd was not running but the activity monitor was stating it was indexing for a whole day. Nothing changed. Fucked up my photo albums pretty badly and so now I'm in the process of reassembling everything from dropbox's web interface (which is a treat itself). I did a back up right before i made any changes but I don't trust that the app will write all the files to dropbox.
joe
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:59 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by joe »

I'll drop asustor support a line referencing this thread. It might wake someone up to the fact this is dire
bikermiker
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:23 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by bikermiker »

Yeah I was thinking of looking up how to start a support ticket. The way it is now, this app simply does not work. Thanks.
lanimul
Posts: 126
Joined: Fri Aug 08, 2014 3:42 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by lanimul »

http://support.asustor.com

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bikermiker
Posts: 16
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:23 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by bikermiker »

Joe,

BTW....

1. Did you put in a support ticket?

2. Are you using Plex or any other app that reads any of the files in your dropbox folder? I have been using Plex.

All,

I just want to add that I had none of these issues with the old "Dropbox" app. There was an ADM update pushed which I believe corrupted the folder that the old dropbox app used so I completely wiped my volume and restored everything, from my back up, except the files for dropbox. I restored everything to the dropbox folder using the new "sync to dropbox" app from dropbox. I didn't use the old "dropbox" app again because it was not available and I thought it may not be compatible with this version of ADM. I suspect the old app was incompatible with the update and that caused the initial corruption.

It should also be noted that I've had even worse issues with Google Drive. I can't even get it to complete the initial file download from Google. I have only been able to sync 3 of my 7GB of files. I may make another thread about that soon...
joe
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:59 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by joe »

Hi bikermiker,

Yes I submitted a ticket to support referencing this forum thread. I attached a screenshot of the app looking dead in the ADM UI and a copy of the datasync_dropbox.log log file from the .datasync-dropbox folder which just seems to keep growing over time whilst the dropboxd process is running. The ticket was created 03 September 2016 02:45 PM (GMT+1) but no response from support yet.

I've got nothing reading files from the dropbox folder at the moment. My desired working setup for this is:

1) One or more computers on the network rsync'ing data to the NAS dropbox sync folder, acting as a local computer to NAS backup mechanism
2) The NAS backs up data from the local NAS dropbox sync folder to remote dropbox, acting as a local NAS to remote dropbox mechanism for offsite backup

I agree, I had no issues and this setup did work until fairly recently using the old dropbox app. It feels that new 'Datasync for Dropbox' app has been completely rewritten to support v2 of the Dropbox API rather than the old Dropbox app code just being maintained and being brought up to date to include v2 API support. Of course this app will need to maintained over time to keep up to date with Dropbox API changes but a shedload of bugs have been introduced in the process of attempting to do that this time around.

In an attempt to revive this app into working, I've performed these steps in this order:

1) complete remote dropbox cleandown
2) local NAS dropbox sync folder cleandown
3) uninstall of the 'Datasync for Dropbox' app
4) manual cleanup of the crud left behind in the home folder after the app uninstall
5) reinstall of the 'Datasync for Dropbox' app
6) re-initiated dropbox sync by copying 4.5GB of data to the sync folder. The app sync'd 528MB of data before giving up completely.

Thanks for the heads up on the Google Drive app. I was going to try that too but I don't think I'll bother now.
Looks like there may be problems with the 'Data Sync for OneDrive' app too: http://forum.asustor.com/viewtopic.php?f=101&t=7987 / http://forum.asustor.com/viewtopic.php?f=101&t=8062
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orion
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Joined: Wed May 29, 2013 11:09 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by orion »

Mine is working fine. (maybe, because I don't put many files to sync to Dropbox.) It will be very nice if you can share result after you got feedback.
The issue on the anchor that you pointed about OneDrive is actually fixed. FYI.
joe
Posts: 62
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 2:59 am

Re: Dropbox not completely syncing

Post by joe »

orion wrote:Mine is working fine. (maybe, because I don't put many files to sync to Dropbox.) It will be very nice if you can share result after you got feedback.
The issue on the anchor that you pointed about OneDrive is actually fixed. FYI.
It's good to get some balance and see it's working for someone but yes I agree it could be related to it not being under load because I've seen it work when there's a low volume of files in the sync folder.

I've taken the plunge and resumed the service one more time and CPU cycles have immediately maxxed out to 100% on one of the 4 cores on my AS202-TE. I'm not sure how long I'll leave it in this state but I'm willing to give it one more try before calling it completely broken and dangerous.
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